Gas Chamber

The gas chamber was recorded to be first used to execute in
Nevada, 1924. Later during World War II (1939-1945) the Nazis under order
of Adolf Hitler, used this same technology to execute mass numbers of Jews and
other minorities held by the German army in concentration camps. There
actions were held as War Crimes, and all involved were punished in the Nuremberg
trials.

When one is sentenced to death by lethal gas they are then strapped down into
a chair located in an airtight chamber, the gas chamber. When the process
begins small glass bubbles filled with cyanide are dropped from the bottom of
the chair and break into a container of sulfuric acid. Once the two
substances mix they form the deadly gas of hydrocyanic acid. Within
seconds of the intake of this gas the person loses all conciousness and
eventually dies within five minutes.

A total of six states still consider the gas chamber a legal form of
execution.

Arizona

California

Maryland

Mississippi

Missouri

North Carolina

Although most of these states only use consider the gas chamber as a back up
to the lethal injection, it is still somewhat active in the state of Arizona.
It was most recently used on March 3, 1999, in the death of Walter LeGrand.